Hawaii Geothermal Project : free convection about a vertical cylinder embedded in a porous medium

Abstract

An analysis is made for free convective flow about a vertical cylinder embedded in a saturated porous medium, where surface temperature of the cylinder varies as xλ, a power function of distance from the leading edge. Within the framework of boundary layer approximations, exact solution is obtained for the special case where surface temperature varies linearly with x, i.e., λ = 1. For other values of λ, approximate solutions based on local similarity and local non-similarity models are obtained. It is found that the local similarity solutions are sufficiently accurate for all practical purposes. Analytical expressions for local surface heat flux and overall surface heat flux are obtained.